The present invention relates to audio systems. More particularly, the invention relates to software configurable sidetone for computer telephony systems.
In traditional telephones, sidetone refers to the signal that is received from the microphone in the handset and transmitted to the speaker in the handset. In other words, sidetone refers to the speaker""s own voice that is propagated back to the speaker""s ear. Without sidetone, it was found that people could not hear their own voice so they talked louder, sometimes yelling, so that they thought they could be heard even when they were actually being heard fine. With too high a sidetone volume, it was found that people heard their own voice at a high volume so they spoke quieter, sometimes whispering, so that they thought they would not sound so loud even when their speaking volume was actually fine in terms of reception at the other end.
Traditional telephones have circuits that provide sidetone feedback to people talking on the telephone because it facilitates proper voice amplitude and makes users more comfortable with the experience. However, as technology advances, computer systems and telephone systems are being integrated. This is especially true for next generation telephone systems that include packet-switched transport in addition to the traditional circuit-switched transport.
A traditional telephone can be incorporated into a computer telephony system in order to utilize the known hardware techniques (such as the partially unbalanced hybrid) to generate appropriate sidetone. However, incorporating personal computer clients in the next generation telephone systems will increase the number of audio transducers that can be used beyond traditional telephones.
Computer systems can utilize microphones, speakers, headsets, handsets, auxiliary input, auxiliary output, and the like for computer telephony. These transducers may not incorporate a hardware sidetone generator, may not operate at the same levels of traditional telephones, and may not operate at the same level as any of the other transducers. For these reasons, and others, conventional hardware sidetone techniques are not satisfactory.
Some sound cards may allow a user to xe2x80x9cmutexe2x80x9d a microphone so that its output will not be transmitted to the output transducers, such as speakers. However, this only allows the user to disable sidetone altogether or to enable an unattenuated, full volume sidetone that is typically too loud for computer telephone user.
It would be desirable to have software configurable sidetone for the additional transducers that are available with computer telephony. Additionally, it would be desirable to have techniques of customizing the sidetone, not only for a specific user but also for each configuration of the computer telephony. Moreover, it would be desirable to have techniques of customizing the sidetone in a more complex fashion that is practical with current hardware techniques in order to better optimize the user-telephony interface.
The present invention provides innovative techniques for software configurable sidetone for computer telephony. A user can specify a characteristic of the desired sidetone and then the computer system generates the sidetone signal with the specified characteristic. An example of a characteristic is the overall volume of the sidetone. Another example of a characteristic is an adjustment of ratios, thresholds and/or parameters that are utilized by the computer system to generate the sidetone signal. Additionally, sidetone can be customized for different configurations of the computer telephony system. Several embodiments of the invention are described below.
In one embodiment, the invention provides a computer implemented method of generating a sidetone signal. An input signal from an input transducer is received. A sidetone signal according to the input signal and a user defined characteristic is generated. In a preferred embodiment, the volume of the sidetone signal is proportional to the volume of the input signal at a first ratio when the volume of the input signal is below a threshold, and the volume of the sidetone signal is proportional to the volume of the input signal at a second ratio when the volume of the input signal is above the threshold.
In another embodiment, the invention provides a computer implemented method of generating a sidetone signal. A current value of a characteristic of a sidetone signal is displayed. User input specifying a new value of the characteristic of the sidetone signal is received. The new value of the characteristic for generating the sidetone signal is saved. When the sidetone signal is generated, the sidetone signal can be generated according to an input signal from an input transducer and the new value of the characteristic.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become readily apparent upon the review of the following description in association with the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, the same or similar structures will be identified by the same reference numerals.